Will a robot replace the pilot on your next flight?
No, this isn’t a late-day April Fools’ gag. Both NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (they started the Internet, remember…) are working on technologies for automated co-pilots or pilots—and the intentional crash of a passenger airliner a week and change ago has led to real speculation over whether this is a realistic direction to look.
Jelisa Castrodale’s BLOG in USA Today yesterday asks those questions: “How close are we to pilotless planes,” and “will airline passengers be ready to accept it?” The technology is certainly very close (and years of experience designing and operating military drones has certainly proven a lot of it), I think most of us will not be comfortable at this point.
And just to look at it from another point of view: The Air Line Pilots Association, largest pilot union in the world, is already making its concern clear to the U.S. Senate.
Photo: Wikimedia / Lipton Sale
